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People older than me have always said something to the effect of “time passes faster as you age.” Once in a while I see how this has occurred in my life. An example that continues to come up: Back to the Future. Especially Back to the Future Part II (Marty travelled to 2015, yikes!).

I associate BTTF with 1985 and 1955. Marty McFly goes so far back in time that everything is quaint and foreign. The music is strange, fashions are strange, cars have fins. It was clearly another time to my 1980s childhood self.

But if BTTF came out today, Marty would go all the way back to…1984. The joke about Ronald Reagan (“The actor?!?”) being president, well, 2014 Marty would arrive during his time in office.

The cultural significance of the three films in the series ranges from the DeLorean to “Great Scott!” to 1.21 jiggawatts to the Hoverboard. Of course, these aren’t the only words that Back to the Future has added to the lexicon. There is also a new definition of a humble greeting:

‘Back to the Future’ provides the OED’s earliest ex. of ‘hello’ implying that a person is not paying attention: http://t.co/HDy2RP7WuZ

The Walt Disney Company has a complicated history with copyright. Disney has long taken inspiration for its movies from the public domain. Fairy tales, fables, Shakespeare, you name it, Disney has borrowed it. Disney has continued the age old practice of building on the work of others. There is no shame in this, it’s the natural progression of art, science, engineering, law, math, everything. That’s how society evolves.

Copyright, along with patent law, dates back to the founding documents of America (and the concepts predate immigration across the Atlantic) and is designed to serve as an incentive for creative works. The idea is that by issuing a limited monopoly, the state can encourage citizens to write, invent, paint, sing, and compose, recoup their investment and make some profit, and then gift their work to society. Copyright law is designed to encourage the greater good. Not be a barrier to protect the rights of artists against the public.

The Wall Street Journal on Monday published an article outlining an interview with ESPN President John Skipper discussing the cord-cutting revolution and ESPN’s reluctance to embrace internet content distribution unpaired from a cable or satellite (pay-TV) subscription.

“Though the company has internally considered a stand-alone broadband offering, “it’s not close yet.”

Mr. Skipper told the paper that a version of ESPN untethered from a cable subscription isn’t close, but in the age of Netflix, this is a surprise. Shouldn’t ESPN be close but not offering the product, perhaps, like HBO and HBO Go, trying to warm up the cable providers to the idea?

ESPN, like parent Disney, and recently, Disney property ABC, requires uses link their online or portable device with their traditional cable account. Signing in is a relatively painless process, but it means that for those who do not have some form of pay-TV, there is no online alternative.

For ESPN, a cable channel, this is unfortunate. With the success of MLB.tv, many sports fans would gladly free themselves of the channels they currently pay for and don’t watch to gain access to an online portal of ESPN content. Already, on the WatchESPN app, a greater amount of content is available – many college games for example – that don’t show up on the TV ESPN channels are available to stream over the internet either live or from an archive. Right now, ESPN wants to protect their current deals with the cable operators, not viewers, making payments.

It’s a similar strategy to that being taken by the NFL and Major League Baseball against Aereo: the threat of putting more content behind a paywall. Rather than broadcast games on free, over-the-air television, the leagues have indicated they would prefer to alienate some viewers and become cable-only rather than let the alternative antenna service provide customers with a feed of the game acquired in a, currently, legal manner.

Sure, live sports is an anchor that keeps people subscribing to cable tv. Right now, it’s compelling even if frustrating, but the same sports leagues that are retreating to cable don’t have much further to go before just selling directly to the consumer. Disney is in a unique position having so many iconic and powerful brands (Pixar, ABC, ESPN, Marvel, Star Wars, etc.) that it can leverage to move customers anywhere along the content spectrum. Netflix in 2016 will become a very nice home for many of their properties.

For the same hundred dollars a month minimum buy-in for a cable & internet package, consumers might start spending fifty dollars on internet and ten dollars per month on the three services they choose, perhaps even alternating when a new Game of Thrones (or whichever show is popular and offered in the right format) season debuts.

The cord-cutting revolution may have started before 2014, but the first big battles could well be fought this year as the hardware, software, and services are reaching past the domain of the technically inclined and arriving in living rooms in the form of a Chromecast, AppleTV, gaming console, and mobile devices. With a tap on a touchscreen, television content is at your literal fingertips, with barely a thought to the cable company.

Thirty years ago the United States Supreme Court decided that personal recordings were fair use and that selling a device (the VCR) that has substantial non-infringing uses is lawful even if it could be used to infringe. In chapter four of The Road Ahead, Bill Gates pondered the digital future and the evolution of computers.

As he saw the VCR invented during his lifetime, Gates predicted a host of new time-shifting devices that would interface with the Internet, his “highway.” While Netflix is almost taken for granted these days, serving up pre-existing as well as new content “on demand” in 1995 was still a technology somewhat out of science fiction.

Even four years later when Quest aired a commercial featuring a fictional motel that offered “every movie ever made in any language anytime, day or night” the dream of unlimited on-demand selection was still futuristic.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxtxPAUcwQ]

In 1999 the top DVDs for sale on Amazon.com were The Matrix, The Blair Witch Project, and Titanic. This was the start of the DVD era as people just began to adopt the home theater crazy. The Matrix itself pushed many to adopt DVD as their home movie format rather than VHS, but in a world just beginning to exit dial-up speeds, streaming a movie was still a ways off.

Although the market for a book written by Bill Gates in 1995 was obviously going to lean heavy on the technology crowd, his explanation of how this on-demand system would work is telling:

Movies, television programs, and all sorts of other digital information will be stored on “servers,” which are computers with capacious disks…The requested data will be retrieved from the server and routed by switched back to your television, personal computer, or telephone—your information appliances.

In 2014, no one needs to explain what a server is and even if the “person on the street” doesn’t understand exactly how the cloud works, s/he understands the relationship between offsite and onsite data storage.

What continues to be impressive in The Road Ahead is Bill Gates’ understanding of where technology will go over the course of twenty years. Considering the beliefs about the imminent arrival of cold fusion, flying cars, and household robots over the past fifty years, and how so many new companies have emerged to offer the new technologies he anticipated, this is an impressive amount of understanding.

There are some misses…

One new form [of display] will be the digital whiteboard: a large wall-mounted screen…[that] will display pictures, movies, and other visual materials, as well as text and other fine details.

…but overall the 1995 version of Bill Gates would fit in well in 2014, although there may be less Microsoft in people’s lives than he would have anticipated.

The wallet PC, essentially the smartphone, was described a pocket computer that would replace wallets, provide a connection to the highway, and act as a Swiss Army knife for the digital world.

What do you carry on your person now? Probably at least keys, identification, money, and a watch. Quite possibly you also carry credit cards, a checkbook, traveler’s checks, an address book, an appointment book, a notepad, reading material, a camera, a pocket tape recorder, a cellular phone, a pager, concert tickets, a map, a compass, a calculator, an electronic entry card, photographs, and perhaps a loud whistle to summon help.

Outside of identification, which has not yet reached the realm of the phone for higher levels like government ID (but has for many forms of tickets), the rest of the bag of tricks can be handled with a smartphone and nothing else, depending on where you spend your money. With Apple, Google, and the cellular carriers all trying to gain a foothold in mobile payments, it might not be possible to spend money only using a phone, but an ID, credit/debit card, and phone is a realistic set of things to leave the house with and not have to worry.

There was actually some good timing that went into this post: news about Microsoft’s Siri and Google Now competitor, Cortana, was released just a few days ago. As the third major mobile OS player, this was an area Microsoft needed to get up to speed in to remain competitive feature wise. However, as with tablet computers, which Gates and Microsoft pushed commercially for nearly a decade before the iPad made them popular, the virtual assistant is ground they covered in the past.

Gates anticipated the omnipresent intelligence of Google Now in the wallet PC for travel: “It will monitor digital traffic reports and warn you that you’d better leave for an airport early, or suggest an alternate route.” And he had it for voice command questions: “You might ask, ‘Where’s the nearest Chinese restaurant that is still open?’” but at the end of the day, he imagined something more like the Star Trek computer. Gates imagined an electronic companion you would talk with as a specific source, like an individual. In 1995, Gates termed these digital assistants “agents.”

An agent that takes on a personality provides a ‘social user interface.’

The character will disappear when you get to the parts of the product you know very well. But if you hesitate or ask for help, the agent will reappear and offer assistance.

Yes, Microsoft has been working on agents for years. Microsoft Bob was one. Clippy was another.

With Cortana, Microsoft will not be bringing Clippy to the phone. Hopefully. More likely, Microsoft will finally produce the agent that Gates imagined so many years ago. Voice recognition took longer than anticipated to roll out, but it’s here now, and it’s pretty good.

For Bill Gates, like Steve Jobs, the PC in 1995 was on the path towards becoming an appliance. As of 2014, this is truer than ever before, although the true computing appliances aren’t the desktops and laptops but the phones, tablets, and set-top boxes. Chromebooks have turned the laptop market on its head as a computer that looks traditional but acts like a new concept. As HP said in an ad campaign, “the computer is personal again.” Or with new functions, controls, and interfaces, it’s more personal than it’s ever been.

It’s been nearly fourteen years since Bill Gates resigned from his position as Microsoft CEO. He was succeeded by Steve Ballmer, who recently announced his own retirement. In the intervening years, the computer revolution opened a new front: mobile and connected devices.

The Road Ahead was published nearly five years before Gates would pass the torch and during that time the computer industry would transform from one of discrete machines to one of networked computing. The Internet and, as Gates says, the “information highway” would become a standard communication method in homes alongside telephone service and cable TV. In chapter three, Gates looks back on his time in the computer industry. A time when the PC merely entering the home was ending and the beginning of the computer becoming a terminal that can access all the information in the world.

Gates looks back on his time at Microsoft from the mid-90s when Microsoft, Windows, and Intel seemed to be an unconquerable alliance of strength. As Homer Simpson might say “You hear me? No comeuppance!” Given the current view of Microsoft: lumbering, out of touch, and suffering from a failure of leadership, Gates’ observations could serve as a lesson to every member of the leadership at the company he founded.

Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose. And it’s an unreliable guide to the future. What seems the perfect business plan or latest technology today may soon be as out-of-date as the eight-track player, the vacuum-tube television, or the mainframe computer. I’ve watched it happen.

There’s a philosophical aspect to Gates’ perception of his industry: he wanted to learn the lessons of those who failed and take from them the knowledge to remain strong. Recounting the stories of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Wang Laboratories, Gates tells stories of triumph and tragedy. Companies that began as young, innovative, and inspiring (both to attract customers and create a desire among workers to join and be part of their success) turned a corner and became the followers rather than the leaders. Their visionary founders suddenly looked like they were standing still as new hotshots emerged.

Gates lists “Apple, Compaq, Lotus, Oracle, Sun, and Microsoft” as new companies that rose from nothing to topple giants. An interesting list today. Since 1995, Compaq merged with HP, Lotus was absorbed by IBM, and Sun was acquired by Oracle. Apple, of course, became old but then reinvented itself with the iMac, iPod, iPhone, and iPad, making Steve Jobs the visionary leader he is remembered as.

What about Microsoft? Well, Microsoft still makes money. Lots of it. But it is not the company on people’s lips. It is not the place young people want to work. It’s the company that makes the products people have to use for work (Microsoft Office), the Xbox, and Windows. These are successful products, no doubt about it, but don’t provide enough thrust to fully escape the dangerous situation Gates observed in other companies. Even the Xbox is more of the exception that proves the rule than a real sign that Microsoft is adapting.

Microsoft grew into a powerhouse because it’s software became the standard with which everyone wanted to ensure compatibility. Gates talks about Microsoft BASIC and the power of the de facto standard emerging from the marketplace, like compact discs replacing vinyl records and QWERTY becoming, essentially, the only keyboard layout. MS-DOS would follow this same path through the licensing deal with IBM. MS-DOS became the most attractive operating system on the large player in the market and others then followed suit.

While this discussion of de facto standards and history is interesting, what’s really fascinating is to look at a few comments Gates makes that have some meaning on Microsoft’s current situation.

In terms of flexibility, Gates uses an example that jumped out at me: “Given a choice between a beautiful, handcrafted mailbox with an opening that would accommodate only one size envelope, and an old carton that everyone routinely dropped all mail and messages into, you’d use the one with broader access. You would choose compatibility.”

Microsoft currently has a problem of operating system abundance: Windows 8.1, Windows RT, and Windows Phone 8 are all fighting for the Windows throne. All use the new Metro design language full of flat shapes and bold colors. Windows 8.1 is the operating system for laptops and desktops, RT is the Windows for ARM processors (used on the Surface RT, though not the Intel-powered Surface Pro), and Phone is self explanatory. Microsoft has crafted three mailboxes that each serve a separate, but overlapping, market segment.

The Xbox is also running a flavor of Windows but the access to that platform is much more restrictive than any of the traditional Windows platforms because game consoles are their own beast.

Gates’ proud statement that “[a]nyone can develop application software that runs on the Windows platform, without having to notify or get permission from Microsoft” is potentially under fire these days from the app store model. App stores can put a barrier between creators and customers. Apple enforces this idea of a curated experience more than Google, Amazon, and Microsoft – and can deny an app admission or request changes for any variety of reasons – but potentially a world where all software must approved by the operating system creator is creeping up on us. While HTML5 and webapps can continue to fulfill the promise of “write once, run anywhere” native software will always exist.

Approval by an appstore can raise quality and ensure compatibility, but it can put a limit on innovation if the software company running the store is calling the shots. As MS-DOS was transitioning to Windows 95 and Windows NT in 1995, Gates described almost perfectly the situation Microsoft is facing today, with the Windows 7 / Windows 8 transition:

Existing users would not upgrade and we wouldn’t get any new ones. Our revenue would fall and many more companies would compete to take our place…You can’t rest on your laurels, because there is always a competitor coming up behind you.

The saga of Metro, the Start menu leaving, somewhat returning, and potentially regaining prominence in the successor to Windows 8.1 is a sign that Microsoft can’t simply force the market to move with them.

Tablets and phone running iOS and Android (or Android-based FireOS) are the companies jumping to take advantage of Microsoft’s awkward transition from desktop computing to touch computing. Ubuntu is making a phone and tablet version of it’s Linux offering. Firefox is making a phone operating system. Customers want the Windows they know (Windows 95 through Windows 7) and not the new Metro UI.

Bill Gates left Microsoft before it’s leadership position was in jeopardy. Could he have seen these struggles coming in his own company or would Gates’ Microsoft, like DEC and Wang, have faltered anyway?

The first time I heard the term “Information Age” I was tantalized. I knew about the Iron Age and the Bronze Age, periods of history named for the new materials men used to make their tools and weapons. Those were specific eras. Then I read academics predicting that countries will be fighting over the control of information, not natural resources. This sounded intriguing too, but what did they mean by information?

In the second chapter of The Road Ahead, Bill Gates describes the new world that began in earnest with the Internet, but has roots going back further. Remembering that in 1995 the idea of the “multimedia PC” was just beginning to take root. Compact Discs were the new medium of storage – holding the equivalent of just under five hundred floppy disks – bringing audio and full-motion video to fourteen inch CRT monitors everywhere.

This chapter, unlike chapter one, is focused more on history than prediction. The explanations of exactly what technologists mean, why they use binary numbering, and why that makes sense for a language to communicate with machines is Gates at his most tech-geek self. Even as someone familiar with this part of the story, whom Gates gives the option to skip the chapter, it was an enjoyable read.

This may be the chapter of The Road Ahead that holds up the best over time. Gates takes the reader on a brief journey of computing, beginning with the abacus, moving on to Blaise Pascal, Gottfried von Leibniz, and Charles Babbage, onto ENIAC and IBM. Interestingly, the Computer History Museum, of which Gates has been a proponent and sponsor, is laid out in a similar fashion, guiding museum goers through a history of math, science, and machinery. If you’re in the vicinity of Mountain View, CA it’s well worth the trip.

Reading an account of the computer revolution before Windows 95, when Microsoft was the dominant presence in the computing world is fascinating. Bill Gates was already “of Borg” but the computer landscape was non-connected desktops. Not too many laptops, no smartphones, no tablets. Even Windows CE devices are a few years off.

Each moment in history, each anecdote shared, is the one chosen by Gates. He compares the journey from analog to digital storage with the way compression techniques are evolving to the eventual rollout of fiber optic cabling and the bandwidth that the “information highway” will require. Doing so, he brings up mathematician Claude Shannon who “defined information as the reduction of uncertainty…if you’re not sure of the day and someone tells you it is Saturday, you’ve been given information because your uncertainty has been reduced.”

Despite his own speculation and expectation of fiber expanding, Internet Explorer was first released in Microsoft Plus! for Windows 95, an expansion pack. Later version of IE were available for free downloads, but IE debuted separate from Microsoft’s prominent operating system.

Gates writes ambitiously about fiber rolling out to provide a data pipe to serve for phone call, data, movies. Nearly twenty years later 70 percent of the United States has access to a broadband connection. The next generation of gigabit-capable infrastructure is rolling out – Google Fiber, Sonic, and even AT&T – are competing to wire up households in the coming years. LTE is marketed as the standard technology for over-the-air data in 2013 when the original iPhone was launched without 3G (although it was in other handsets) in 2007.

When Bill Gates wrote The Road Ahead he looked back on the previous twenty years of his life, Microsoft, and the history of computing, while considering where that path would take society.

Windows 95 was a new revolution in computing, the Internet was still in its infancy, and the original Pentium processor was king of the machines. I remember filling in as a paperboy that summer delivering an issue of the afternoon paper to an elderly customer who thought I must know all about this “Windows” (and he was right). It was the first operating system I installed from a CD, so much easier than floppy disks.

What struck me about Gates’ view of the tech world at the time was not just Microsoft’s motto of “A computer on every desk and in every home” but how he thought we would interact with devices in just a few short years.

“We’ll communicate with it [the network] through a variety of devices, including some that look like television sets, some like today’s PCs; some will look like telephones, and some will be the size and something like the shape of a wallet. And at the heart of each will be a powerful computer, invisibly connected to millions of others.”1

Spot on.

Maybe it’s because I wasn’t even in high school at the time, but I didn’t think that the computing power shown on Star Trek would be in our hands just over a decade from that point, when the iPhone would make Gates’ predictions available to the masses. Combine the idea of the telephone with the wallet-sized device and you’ve just created the smartphone.

Echoing the words of French aviator and author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (“Little by little, the machine will become a part of humanity”2), Gates described and predicted the relationship that would develop between humanity and this new type of connected computer:

“Over time, these machines find a place in our everyday lives because they not only offer convenience and save labor, they can also inspire us to new creative heights. We warm to them. They assume a trusted place beside our other tools.”

Indeed, who does not consider their phone a vital accessory today? Communication, photography, entertainment, navigation – the networked computer, in all form factors, is the robot butler from science fiction. It is Rosie The Jetsons, the computer book from Inspector Gadget, the PADD from Star Trek, and the tool Sean Connery’s James Bond could only dream of.

Three years before Google was founded, and search engines were still a concept biting off more than they could chew, Bill Gates posed fifteen questions that the computers of tomorrow would handle but that in 1995 would be difficult to answer at a moment’s notice.

1. “Is your bus running on time?”

2. “Are there any accidents right now on the route you usually take to the office?”

3. “Does anyone want to trade his or her Thursday theater tickets for your Wednesday tickets?”

4. “What is your child’s school-attendance record?”

5. “What’s a good recipe for halibut?”

6. “Which store, anywhere, can deliver by tomorrow morning for the lowest price a wristwatch that takes your pulse?”

7. “What would someone pay for my old Mustang convertible?”

8. “How is the hole in a needle manufactured?”

9. “Are your shirts ready yet at the laundry?”

10. “What’s the cheapest way to subscribe to The Wall Street Journal?”

11. “What are the symptoms of a heart attack?”

12. “Was there any interesting testimony at the county courthouse today?”

13. “Do fish see in color?”

14. “What does the Champs-Elysées look like right now?”

15. “Where were you at 9:02 P.M. last Thursday?”

One and two can be handled by Google Now displaying cards automatically showing this information. Alternatively, Google Maps or Waze apps could show the accidents, traffic delays, and more.

Three and seven can be solved with Craigslist.

Five, eight, eleven, and thirteen are Google searches. Even speaking them to my phone in question form brought up the answers.

Where was I at 9:02 last Thursday? That one still takes some work, but querying Google on an Android phone (What did I do last week?) brought up my calendar events for the last week, which was a start. Timehop, which creates a chronology of your social media events, check-ins, tweets, and photos could do a better job, but at pointing you in the right direction.

Instagram and twitter had severalpictures of the Champs-Elysées that were at least in the area, if not exactly what the search is looking for, although that in itself is somewhat vague. This query will probably only improve in how easily and accurately the answer is readily available.

Amazon can sell you the watch, but maybe not by tomorrow or at the cheapest price…this one is still in development. But with Google, eBay, Amazon, and more working on same-day delivery solutions, that will be something that can be searched quickly in the near future.

That just leaves school attendance. This one is tricky, but not impossible to solve. Before long all schools will likely have a portal for parents to log in and find out any information about their child. Some no doubt already have a version of this, like Follet’s Aspen SIS, and others will follow. It’s not hard to imagine parents having direct access to attendance, grades, homework assignments and more to keep their kids on track.

Thinking about how much work many of these questions, such as the one regarding fish vision, would take to find twenty years ago, the average person today sits atop a vast storehouse of data and needs to speak or type a few words to glean answers from previously insurmountable chaos.

When Gates first used a computer, access was metered in hours. When he wrote this book, Internet access was measured in the same way, purchased in minutes per month. Today, in an unmetered, networked world, many of his goals in the 1990s are the world we live in.

If you have watched TV this month, especially the first few rounds of the MLB playoffs, you are probably familiar with this ad for the Nexus 7 tablet. While the ad campaign began this summer with a longer spot, it has been during the fall that the campaign really began to take root influencing search behavior.

Using the wonderful Google Trends tool, it’s easy to take a quick look back in time to get a perspective on how successful the ad has been. I don’t know about you, but I did not know the term glossophobia before seeing the ad. Thankfully for the star of the promo, he happened to know the term that described his affliction but not necessarily what it meant. Or he just enjoyed hearing the definition again.

Regardless, glossophobia existed as something of an online footnote over the last several years.

However, the results really picked up in September and October. For anecdotal reference, there were ten MLB playoff games aired from October 3 to October 6, where the glossophobia search reached its peak.

Will the ad campaign translate into sales? Maybe. The Nexus 7 is a nice tablet in my experience. At the very, Google has funded an educational campaign that taught people that glossophobia is the fear of speaking in public.

Samsung has launched an ad campaign for their smart watch, the Galaxy Gear. And from the ad, you might think this watch is about to make your dreams come true.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3qeJKax2CU&w=420&h=315]

Yes, fictional character have used this technology for decades. A watch that can display information beyond time, act as a communication device, and, if you’re James Bond, a laser, is a nice idea. But one that was really fulfilled by the smartphone.

Much as we look back at television shows like Seinfeld, which existed before the cellphone became commonplace, and discover plot holes that would easily be solved with a call or text while on-the-go, the futuristic watches from TV turned into smartphones in reality.

On TV, no one has a problem talking to their devices in front of, well, whoever is around. Characters have no qualms about their conversations being audible for anyone close by.

All the interactions a user has with a smart watch are out in the open. We have a communication device that works this way: the walkie-talkie.

Having used Glass for a few months, having a wearable device replace my phone definitely feels like something that could happen in the next few years. Especially with a device like the iPad Mini or Nexus 7 as a “main” portable machine that could be around for tasks that currently fall to a 4 inch or greater phone.

Each year two players, one from the American League and one from the National League, are honored as Comeback Player of the Year.

Whether the player is returning from injury, illness, or ineffectiveness, each winner has overcome a hurdle of some sort and reversed their fortunes from the previous year.

As the season winds down, a few candidates in each league have separated themselves from the pack.

American League

The AL crop of players this year could probably include the entire Boston Red Sox lineup and rotation, but John Lackey, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Shane Victorino have put themselves ahead of the pack.

Former Red Sox Victor Martinez returned to the Tigers after missing all of 2012 – and picked up where he left off with the bat. And of course Mariano Rivera, after missing most of last season, decided to have an elite season on his way into retirement.

After the 2012 season, despite not throwing a single pitch, John Lackey was not a popular man in New England. Saying that Lackey struggled since arriving in Boston (ERAs of 4.40 in 2010 and 6.41 in 2011) would be an understatement. Even factoring in his injury, which ultimately required Tommy John surgery, 2013 was expected to be a return to 2008-2009 Lackey.

That wouldn’t do for the big right hander. Lackey is 9-12 due to bad luck in terms of run support, but his 3.56 ERA is his best mark since 2007. Lackey is striking out batters at a higher rate (7.6 K/9) than any year since 2006 and is issuing walks at the lowest rate (1.9 BB/9) of his career.

Ellsbury entered 2012 with expectations running high. His MVP caliber season the year before looked like his entrance into superstardom. But a fluke shoulder injury resulting from a collision with Reid Brignac altered his season considerably. Even when he took the field, his performance was disappointing.

Turn the calendar to 2013 and Ellsbury was back to his old tricks: he’s leading the league in steals with 52, hitting .299/.355/.424, and playing excellent defense in center field. As a free agent to be, the timing is perfect for him in terms of negotiations. The one thing not going his way: Ellsbury has been sidelined since Sept. 5 with an injured foot.

Shane Victorino looked bad in 2012. His .255/.321/.383 combined performance with the Phillies and Dodgers was the worst of his career. When the Red Sox handed him a 3-year, $39-million deal in the offseason, there were worries that the Sox had signed a free agent after a down year in his early 30s who might not bounce back.

Once again, the Red Sox got everything they expected, and more, from their player. Victorino entered play Tuesday hitting .294/.352/.454 with 21 steals and 14 home runs. He’s missed some time with some small injuries and has been battling a sore hamstring limiting his ability to switch-hit, but it hasn’t slowed him down.

Victor Martinez missed all of 2012 with a torn ACL and with Prince Fielder and Miguel Cabrera already on the team, looked like he might be the odd man out while fighting for playing time because he would essentially be limited to DH. After a big first year with the Tigers in 2011, .330/.380/.470, it was an open question how Martinez would bounce back.

Through May 31 the former catcher had an OPS under .600. It looked like Martinez would be in store for a disappointing season. He had other plans: a .334/.387/.473 line since June 1 would be enough to raise his batting average to .298 entering play on September 17. In May, a .300 batting average for the season looked unlikely, now, it is within reach.

What can you really say about Mariano Rivera? After missing most of the 2012 season he’s come back for a retirement tour pitching better than many ever do at their peak. His 2.30 ERA is the sixth worst of his career. He made his thirteenth All Star Game. And he has 43 saves. It’s like he didn’t miss any time at all.

National League

The NL has fewer major comeback stories. Some that were expected, like the return of Tim Lincecum, didn’t occur as planned, but there are a couple guys who stand out.

Francisco Liriano has had a strange career. He was dominant during his rookie campaign in 2006, teaming up with Johan Santana at the top of the Twins rotation before succumbing to Tommy John surgery. Liriano wasn’t himself again until 2010, but then fell apart in 2011 and 2012.

When he joined the Pirates over the winter it looked like a good depth move for a team looking for veteran innings, and a move to the NL can do wonders for a pitcher. Liriano took that as a challenge and has posted the second best ERA of his career, 2.92, has struck out a batter per inning, and after two years of 5.0 BB/9 has scaled that down to a more reasonable 3.6.

Troy Tulowitzki played in just 47 games in 2012 and wasn’t at his best when he was on the field. Losing a player like Tulo is tough for any team, but for the Rockies, losing half of the very productive Tulo-CarGo tandem was brutal.

Healthy again, Tulowitzki has hit .315/.388/.539 entering September 17. While the Rockies are currently in last place, they are part of essentially a three-way tie for third in the NL West with the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants. The speed isn’t there anymore, Tulo has just one steal, 22 home runs by a Gold Glove shortstop is always a nice thing to have.

2014

Looking forward, who might headline this list next year?

Could it be a pair of Angels, Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton, and a third baseman looking to rebuild his value on a one-year deal in Chase Headley? Will an offseason cure C.C. Sabathia of his troubles this season?

It’s tough to predict MVPs ahead of time but Comeback Player of the Year might be just as tough, even with the head start of knowing who performed poorly.

Jacoby Ellsbury made his major league debut on June 30, 2007 to give Terry Francona and the Red Sox some flexibility in center field with a banged up Coco Crisp trying to avoid the disabled list.

The rookie would eventually overtake the veteran, even getting playing time in the Red Sox World Series run. Ellsbury is approaching free agency at the end of this season and his career so far has been a journey of highs, lows, and a few injuries.

How does he compare to the recent crop of elite outfielders?

For Ellsbury’s first three seasons in Boston he was a gifted athlete who sometimes needed more work on his routes, but was a threat on the base paths.

In 331 games from 2007-2009 Ellsbury hit .297/.350/.414 with 129 steals, leading the league in 2008 and 2009 with 50 and 70 steals, respectively.

Mike Cameron was brought in in 2010 to provide veteran insight into the center field position after Coco Crisp was traded, shifting Ellsbury to left, but a collision with Adrian Beltre would limit Ellsbury to just 18 games that year.

In 2011, Ellsbury was back and better than ever: .321/.376/.552 with 39 steals and 32 home runs. After hitting a total of 20 home runs in the major leagues to that point, Ellsbury found his power stroke. He won a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, and finished second in MVP voting.

With just two years remaining until free agency, Ellsbury looked like a player in his prime who might have just added a new aspect to his already strong game.

Unfortunately 2012 would be another injury-plagued season. In 74 games Ellsbury would hit just .271/.313/.370 with only four home runs and 14 stolen bases. In a season where everything that could go wrong for the Red Sox did, Ellsbury’s injury and step back in performance hurt a bit more.

With just two years remaining until free agency, Ellsbury looked like a player in his prime who might have just added a new aspect to his already strong game.

His 2013 reversed the tide: .299/.355/.424 with a league-leading 52 steals before fouling a ball off his foot and not appearing in a game since Sept. 5. He’s only hit 8 home runs this year, but with 31 doubles and 8 triples, has recovered the value he had outside of his MVP-caliber season in 2011.

As a fast, Gold Glove center fielder and an elite leadoff hitter, Ellsbury, even with an injured foot, is among the premier free agents this fall.

Johnny Damon, to whom Ellsbury has drawn many comparisons, hit free agency at 31 before signing a 4-year, $52 million contract with the New York Yankees.

Until that point in his career, Damon had hit .290/.353/.431 while averaging 12 home runs and 26 steals per year. Ellsbury’s career .297/.350/.438 line compares quite favorably to the sought-after leadoff hitter, and Ellsbury just turned 30 on Sept. 11, so he hits free agency a little earlier.

Of course, salaries for MLB players aren’t exactly what they were in the winter of 2005 when Johnny Damon signed with the Yankees.

B.J. Upton signed a 5-year, $75.25 deal with the Atlanta Braves last year. With the Rays, Upton averaged .255/.336/.422 with 20 homers and 39 steals per year. There were ups and downs: Upton hit over .273 just once and totalled 20 home runs over two full seasons in 2008 and 2009. He posted his best OPS (.894) in 2007 and hasn’t came within 100 points of that mark since.

To make matters worse, Upton has been dreadful this season, hitting under .200 and finding himself on the bench at times even as the Braves cruise to victory in the NL East. Ellsbury hasn’t had the consistent power of Upton, but his skills are more well-rounded and he has never had the low seasons Upton has in his career.

Another center fielder signed this past offseason as well: Michael Bourn. A late signing by the Cleveland Indians, Bourn has been a speed-first player throughout his career. Bourn lead the league in steals three times from 2009-2011 and has averaged 49 steals per season during his career.

Again, Bourn is not a perfect match for Ellsbury because while Ellsbury has maintained a slugging percentage over .400 in three seasons, and .394 in a fourth, Bourn has little power to speak of, slugging just .362 in his eight-year career.

Which brings us to the target Ellsbury and his agent, Scott Boras, will likely try and compare him to: Carl Crawford. Crawford turned 29 in August of 2010, the year he hit free agency, so he was actually a year younger than Ellsbury when he signed a 7-year, $142 million dollar deal with the Red Sox.

The difficulty for Ellsbury in comparing him to Crawford, who was a .296/.337/.444 hitter coming off a career year, comes from the latter’s power and durability.

During his nine years in Tampa Bay, Crawford hit double digit home runs six time, hitting 15 or more on four occasions. While he was known for his speed, stealing at least 46 bases seven times, Crawford also brought some power. Sometimes, as with his triples, his speed and power worked together, letting the left fielder collect double-digit triples five times.

The difficulty for Ellsbury in comparing him to Crawford, who was a .296/.337/.444 hitter coming off a career year, comes from the latter’s power and durability. Crawford played at least 151 games six times in Tampa. Ellsbury has accomplished the feat just twice.

Crawford also has the stigma of being overpaid. When the Red Sox traded Adrian Gonzalez to the Dodgers, it wasn’t because they were desperate to move their first baseman, but to move what had quickly become a massive overpayment to Crawford.

In a relatively healthy 2013, Crawford has hit .280/.330/.395 with 5 home runs and 13 stolen bases in 108 games. While this production is valuable, the cost of $20 million is not in line with the production.

Ellsbury is an interesting player to hit free agency. He has shown legitimate power, elite speed, the ability to hit for average, defense, and patience, but not all at the same time. Recent free agents like Crawford and Upton have seemed like good signings, only to quickly lose value.

The Red Sox will certainly make Ellsbury the $14 million qualifying offer this winter and may even make a sizeable contract offer to their leadoff hitter.

While Ellsbury has missed time with injuries, he’s had broken bones and collisions take him off the field, not nagging soreness in a hamstring or shoulder, so he might actually be a more durable player going forward who simply has had bad luck.

Depending on how the market reacts to Ellsbury’s career numbers, and whether he is able to make a strong return this season from a broken bone in his foot, will decide how much and for how long the outfielder is signed.

With a low end of Bourn and a high of Crawford, Ellsbury may have a lot of negotiations before he finally chooses his next team.